Overland Red Part 23

But in the dusk of that evening, when a chill dew sparkled along the edges of the bog, he came, a clumsy shadow and grazed among the hummocks. Slowly he worked toward the treachery of black ooze that shone in the starlight. He sank to his fetlocks. He drew his feet up one after another, still progressing toward the centre of the bog, and sinking deeper at each step. He became stricken with fear as he sank to his hocks. He plunged and snorted. The bog held him with a soft, detaining grip--and drew him slowly down. He nickered, and finally screamed in absolute terror. Up to his heaving belly the black mud crept. He flung himself sideways. Exhausted, he lay with neck and head outstretched.

Again he struggled, his eyes wild and protruding with the blood pressure of his straining. Then the chill of night crept over him. He became quiet--s.h.i.+vered a little, and nickered faintly.

In the willows a little owl called pensively.

The morning light, streaming across the hills, spread like raw gold over the bog. Collie whistled as he rode down the trail, and beat his gloved hands to keep warm. He heard a plaintive whinny and a bubbling gasp. He leaped from his pony, the coiled riata in his hand as he touched the ground.

The blunder colt, neck outstretched, was still above the ooze. His eyes were bloodshot, as their white rims showed. His nose quivered and twisted with his quick, irregular breathing.

It was a "two-man job," but Collie knew that the colt would probably be gone before he could ride back and return with help. He swung the riata, then hesitated. To noose the colt's neck would only result in strangling it when he pulled. He found a branch large enough to stiffen the brush near the break. Swiftly he built a shaky footing and crept out toward the colt. By shoving the riata under the colt's belly with a forked stick, and fis.h.i.+ng the loose end up on the other side, he managed to get a loop round the animal's hind quarters. He mounted his own horse and took a turn of the riata round the saddle-horn.

His pony set its feet and leaned to the work. Slowly the colt was drawn to solid ground.

He was a pitiful object as he lay panting and s.h.i.+vering, plastered with mud and black slime, and almost dead from shock and chill. Collie spread his slicker over him and rode up the hill at a trot. The blunder colt raised its head a little, then dropped it and lay motionless.

When Collie and Billy Dime returned with gunnysacks and an old blanket, the sun had warmed the air. The mud on the colt's side and neck had begun to dry.

Billy Dime commented briefly. "He's a goner. He's froze clean to his heart. Why didn't you leave him where he was?"

Collie spread the gunnysacks on a level beneath a live-oak, beneath which they dragged the colt and covered him with the blanket. They gave him whiskey with water that they heated at a little fire of brush. The colt lifted its head, endeavoring spasmodically to get to its feet.

"He's wearin' hisself out. He ain't got much farther to go," said Billy Dime, mounting and turning his pony. "Come on, kid. If he's alive to-morrow mornin'--good enough."

"I think I'll stay awhile," said Collie. "Brand says he isn't worth saving, but--I kind of like the cuss. He's different."

"Correct, nurse, he is. You can telephone me if the patient shows signs of bitin' you. Keep tabs on his pulse--give him his whiskey regular, but don't by no means allow him to set up in bed and smoke. I'll call again nex' year. So long, sweetness."

"You go plump!" laughed Collie.

And Billy Dime rode over the hill singing a dolefully cheerful ditty about burying some one on the "lo-o-ne prairee." To him a horse was merely something useful, so long as it could go. When it couldn't go, he got another that could.

Collie replenished the smoking fire, sc.r.a.ped some of the mud from the colt's thick, winter coat, and heated a half-dozen large stones.

His brother cowmen would have laughed at these "tender ministrations,"

and Collie himself smiled as he recalled Billy Dime's parting directions.

Collie placed the heated stones round the s.h.i.+vering animal, re-dried the blanket at the fire, and covered the pitifully weak and panting creature. The colt's restless lifting of its head he overcame by sitting near it and stroking its muzzle with a soothing hand.

Time and again he rose to re-heat the stones and replenish the fire. The colt's breathing became less irregular. He gave it more of the hot whiskey and water.

Then he mended the fence. He had brought an axe with him and a supply of staples.

Toward mid-afternoon he became hungry and solaced himself with a cigarette.

Again the blunder colt became restless, showing a desire to rise, but for lack of strength the desire ended with a swaying and tossing of its head.

Evening came quickly. The air grew bitingly chill. Collie wished that one of the boys would bring him something to eat. The foreman surely knew where he was. Collie could imagine the boys joking about him over their evening "chuck."

With the darkness he drew on his slicker and squatted by the fire. He fell asleep. He awoke s.h.i.+vering, to find the embers dull. The stars were intensely brilliant and large.

Once during the evening he made up his mind to return to the ranch-house, but a stubborn determination to save the colt, despite the ridicule he knew he would elicit, held him to his task. Should he leave, the colt might become chilled again and die. Then he _would_ be open to ridicule. Collie reasoned that he must finish the task as he had begun it--thoroughly.

Again he heated the stones, warmed the blanket, and gave "Blunder," as he now called him affectionately, some hot whiskey. Then he built a larger fire, wrapped himself in his saddle-blankets, and, with feet to the blaze, slept. His own pony grazed at large, dragging a rope.

Habit brought Collie awake early. The fire had gone out. He was stiff with cold. Arising, he glanced at the heap beneath the blanket ringed with stones. "Time to eat!" he cried l.u.s.tily, and whipped the blanket from the mud-encrusted Blunder. The colt raised its head, struggled, put out one stiff fore leg, and then the other. Collie grabbed the animal's tail and heaved. Blunder humped himself--and was on his feet, wobbling, dizzy-eyed, scandalously "mussed up"--but alive!

"Whoop-ee!" shouted Collie as the colt staggered a pace or two trying his questionable strength. "Gee! But I'm hungry!"

The Blunder, a mere caricature of a horse in pose and outward seeming, gazed at his rescuer with stupid eyes. He had not the faintest idea what all the joy was about, but something deep in his horse nature told him that the boisterous youth was his friend. Timidly he approached Collie, wagged his head up and down experimentally, as if trying his neck hinges, and reached out and nuzzled the young man's hand, nipping playfully at his fingers.

Collie was dumbfounded. "He's thankin' me--the little cuss! Why, you rubber-kneed, water-eyed mud turtle you! I didn't know you had that much sense."

The youth did not hear the regular beat of hoofs as Williams loped up, until the colt, stilt-legged, emitted a weak nicker. Collie turned.

Williams smiled grimly. "Knew you'd stick," he said.

He gazed at the revived colt, the circle of stones, and the blanket. He made no comment.

Collie caught up his pony and mounted. As they rode over the hill together, Williams, turning in the saddle, laughed and pointed down toward the arroyo.

The blunder colt, apparently overjoyed to be alive, had ambled awkwardly up to one of his mates who stood stolidly waiting for the sun to warm him. The other colt, unused to the Blunder's society and perhaps unfavorably impressed by his dissipated appearance, received this friendly overture with a pair of punis.h.i.+ng hoofs. Blunder staggered and fell, but scrambled to his feet again, astonished, indignant, highly offended.

"If you was to drive that blunder colt up to horse-heaven and he knew it _was_ horse-heaven, you'd have to turn him around and back him in. Then I reckon he'd bust the corral tryin' to get out again."

Collie grinned. "Well, I wouldn't this morning--if there was anything to eat there, even hay."

"Well, you don't get your breakfast at the chuck-house _this_ morning,"

said Williams gruffly.

"I don't, eh? Since when?"

Williams again turned in his saddle, observing Collie for a minute before he spoke. "I see you're smilin', so I'll tell you. Since when?

Well, since about two hours ago, when Miss Louise come steppin' over to the bunk-house and asks where you are. Billy Dime ups and tells her you was sick-nursin' the blunder colt. She didn't smile, but turned to me and asked me. I told her about what was doin'. I seen she had it in for somebody. It was me. 'Brand,' she says, quiet-like, 'is it customary on the Moonstone for lunch or dinner to be taken to the men that are staying out from camp?'

"'Yes, ma'am,' says I.

"And the plumb h.e.l.l of it was," continued Williams, "she didn't say another word. I wisht she had. I feel like a little less than nothin'

shot full of holes this lovely mornin'."

Collie rode on silently.

"Why don't you say somethin'?" queried Williams.

"I was waiting for the rest of it," said Collie.

Williams laughed. "I guess you ain't such a fool, at that, with your nussin' stock and settin' up nights with 'em. Miss Louise says to tell you to come right up to the house,--the _house_, you understand,--and get your breakfast with them. They said they was goin' to wait for you.